Year 3

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Alien Animation

'First, we had to design our own alien characters and draw our background for our animation, for example, a forest, but it couldn't be any old forest. It needed to be a forest that you would find on an alien planet. Then we made any objects that we needed. If our characters needed to have moving body parts, we had to cut them off so we could move them when we made the animation. Next, we had to write a story for our alien story. All of the group should have written a similar story because we all had the same animation. Now we needed to write a script for our animation. We had to write what the alien was saying in English for the narrator to say.

To make the actual animation, first you had to do your title page and have your first characters ready. When you've got the first scene in place, you needed to take a picture. Then you move your characters slightly in the direction you want them to go and take a picture. Then you carry on moving your objects and characters to act out your animation and you can use voice for sound effects. With the cut body parts, for example a leg, you move it just in front of the body for one picture and then just behind the body for the next picture. To knock on a door, you take a picture with the arm up, then a picture with the arm down, then up again, and you keep going alternatively for about five pictures.

If you follow these steps, your animation will be the most mind blowing, five star, award winning animation in the world, your planet and even Mars!

To make our move, we used an app on the iPad called Lego Movie. It was so much fun!'

Written by Harvey

CARNIVAL!

As part of sports week, Year 3 took part in a Samba workshop and we all thoroughly enjoyed it! To warm up, our instructor taught us the basic beat for a Samba dance and this is what we used to warm up. She made us do the warm up at lots of different speeds and even made us pretend our bodies were made of jelly. We then learnt our first Brazilian dance; the Bolero, the dance of love. Once we'd mastered this, we moved on to learn the Samba and remembered it using the 'fish and chips' rhythm. Finally, we learnt the Capoeira, which is a combination of Judo and Samba and is used as a fight dance in Brazil. Then it was time to put all of the dances together and add one more move with our partner. The last part of the dance involved us forming a line, but it didn't have to be a single line, we needed to look like a crowd at a carnival. We all had masks, flags or ribbons and then followed our leader as we danced in a circle to the lovely rhythm of the Brazilian music and all cheered and sung.

Harvey- "I liked the part when you had to do the Judo dancing because it wasn't hitting people but we learnt to stare out our opponent and intimidate them."

Megan- "My favourite part was when we put all of the dances together."

Brook- "When we went round with the flags and shouted 'We love Rio' and we had some little ribbons and we waved them in the air when we went round in a circle."

Ashley- "I really liked dancing with Macie and making up our own moves to the music."

Referendum Day!

Year 3 have had many strong views on the recent EU referendum, but as we were unable to vote as a class, we decided to have our own referendum day. On Friday 24th June, Year 3 made the decision whether they wanted to remain as part of White Cliffs Primary College for the Arts, or whether we should leave and become an individual class with our own rules.

Lucian- "We had to listen to both sides of the debate, one was told us the benefits of leaving and one who pointed out the good points if we stayed. We said it's good to be part of the school because we know the rules and we feel safe in the school."

Ashley- "But if we leave, we might get longer playtimes and a playtime in the afternoon!!"

Eventually as a class, we decided that we should stay as part of White Cliffs Primary College for the Arts with a huge 73% choosing to remain, compared to only 23% who wanted to leave. We even had 4% who did not vote in our referendum!

Conner- "I wanted to stay because I always feel safe and we get a holiday at Christmas."

Action Art!

On Tuesday 21st June, Year 3 got very messy! For our orientation afternoon, we needed to warn parents that they shouldn’t wear their best clothes!

"On Tuesday afternoon at 2pm all of Year 3's parents and carers came to our orientation afternoon. For an hour our parents and us took part in lots of activities such as blowing bubbles into paint with washing up liquid and then we put white card on top to create bubble pictures. We also had a marble with paint on and we put it in a box with a piece of black card in and working in partners, we both had a spoon and batted the marble to each other. Year 3 also went outside where there was a gigantic sheet and we had to shoot it with water guns but they weren't filled with water, they were filled with paint! Our last activity was a box and it was full of paper and to go with it was a whisk with paint on and when we turned it on, paint dots came flying everywhere! I really liked having my dad come in to work with me, it was so much fun. And now we have some lovely alien art!"

Written by Lilly

Tim- “It was fantastic!”

Macie- “My favourite activity was spraying the sheet with the water pistols, but they were filled with paint! We squirted the paint everywhere over the sheet and made action art.”

Litres and Millilitres

Today in Maths, Friday 17th June, we were looking at litres and millilitres and how that sometimes containers might be completely different shapes and sizes but they can still hold the same amount. We proved this by starting with one litre of coloured water and then pouring it in to two 500ml containers, and then we poured one of those into two 250ml containers. Finally we poured all the liquid back into the first container to show that we still had one litre of liquid even though it had not always looked this way. This also helped us to show a half and a quarter of a litre as we have also been looking at fractions this week.

Wind Power

During Term 6 in Science, Year 3 are looking at forces and how they make objects move. On Thursday 16th June, we looked at how air makes things move. We all went to the field to investigate how the wind made windmills and flags move. We found that because it wasn't that windy, we needed to run to help it gain some wind and let it move. We also found out that when the front of the windmill faced the wind, the blades caught the wind better and span quicker than when the side of the windmill was facing the oncoming wind. The little flag also moved in the wind and was affected by the different winds; a strong wind made it curl around the stick rather than blow nicely. But the big flag needed lots of wind to make it move.

Tim- "I really liked this science lesson and running up and down the field to make the big flag blow in the wind."

Lilly- "It was really hard to get the little flag to blow nicely in the wind. When we stood still, it didn't really move, but when we ran, the wind was too strong and it sometimes curled around the stick."

Properties of Lines

On Tuesday 10th May, we had some fun in Maths looking at the different ways we could make horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. We had already been looking at different lines in Maths and we had practised drawing them in our books and identifying them. We had also had a look at parallel and perpendicular lines which was quite tricky!

Caitlin- "My favourite way to show the lines was to use the peg boards with the elastic bands. We were allowed to make different pictures with the elastic bands. After I had made my picture, I had to tell Mrs Bagshaw or Miss Lavender the different direction of line, I had vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines in my picture."

Harvey- "I liked drawing the different lines using different coloured pencils. I decided to draw a robot because they have lots of straight lines. I used green for diagonal lines, red for vertical lines and blue for the horizontal lines. I drew a key next to my picture so other people could identify the different lines on my picture."

Dylan- "It was really fun looking at the different directions of lines. We used post-it notes and went around the classroom trying to find objects that had horizontal lines, vertical lines and diagonal lines. After everyone had done this activity, the classroom had so many post-it notes stuck everywhere. I'm glad I didn't have to tidy it up!"

Tennis Skills

Throughout this term, we have continued to practise our tennis skills. On Monday 9th May, we practised controlling the ball in the build up to a real tennis match!

Lilly- "We did lots of activities in this lesson that would help our skills with a tennis racket and ball to get better. Firstly we learnt how to hold the racket properly, and we remembered our ready position for when the ball comes towards us. Then Mrs Bagshaw gave us a ball each and we walked along the lines in the playground balancing the ball on top of our racket. By the end of this, we were all quite good! Afterwards we got into partners and had to try and pass the ball between our two rackets without dropping it on the floor. I can't wait to play in a proper tennis match!"

Wonka's Chocolate Room!

This term in English, Year 3 have been reading and studying Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and on Wednesday 27th April, we have had the chance to make our very own chocolate room with real chocolate and sweets! We had to think about what different sweets could be used for, and what structures we could build from them. We had such a variety; trees, paths, flowers, toadstools and even bridges! We then used our models to help us write descriptions of the chocolate room from Willy Wonka's factory.

"As I stumbled in through the grand chocolate gates, I was amazed at what I saw. I smelt the marshmallows, they smelt delectable and I smelt the creamy mountain. The chocolate bridge smelt so good and the rainbow river looked so sour, I could eat it all up and the chocolate mushroom looked so tasty! I looked at the pinecone entrance and it looked so good to eat and the juice was good and I ate the pot, it was magnificent. I felt the sprinkled, green, sweet grass. I heard the pinecones crunching up and the rainbow river swishing and whooshing together. I tasted the mushrooms, they were creamy inside."

Written by Brooke

Year 3 Roving Reporter

Tennis Skills

On Monday 25th April, Year 3 continued to practise tennis skills so we would soon be ready to have a match.

In P.E. we have been learning about problem solving. We went across the chocolate river from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We had 3 stepping stones, first on each the person at the front had to put the stepping stones down in front of them, the other person grabbed the last stepping stone to give the first person to put down.

The next game we played was called, ‘Switch’, we put tennis balls on cones and had to move the balls to the opposite sides. This helped us to get into the ready position. The first team to get everybody across wins.

Year 3 had loads of fun and enjoyed P.E.

Written by Bailey

Year 3 Roving Reporter

Bronze Age Boats

Last term, Year 3 went on a trip to Dover Museum to learn about the Bronze Age and the Stone Age. On this trip, we made Bronze Age boats from clay, and we even included some of the cargo that would have been traded with France. Such as cattle, pottery, blankets and wheat. On Friday 15th April, we were able to paint these boats. We had to think carefully about what colours we could use to paint the boat. We had a class discussion and decided that our boats would be brown as they were made of wood, and our blankets would have been either yellow or green as these natural dyes were available from leaves, berries and flowers. We also know that cows aren’t pink or blue so used suitable colours for these as well!

Mitchell- “I found it hard to paint all of the clay because it was hard to get the paintbrush into the little corners.”

On Wednesday 30th March, Year 3 had a try at making their own Stone Age cereal bars. They combined the ingredients that would have been available to a Stone Age man to create their very own cereal bar to take home. The ingredients that we used were oats, honey, raisins and dried apricots.

Jake- "We used the honey to bind everything together. It was very sticky!"

Harvey- "I really liked mixing everything together and weighing out the ingredients. We had to add a bit more of the oats sometimes because we poured too much honey in."

Lexie- "I thought they were very yummy. The honey made them nice and sweet."

Easter Assembly

On 29th March, Year 3 retold the Easter story to the school in their class assembly through the use of the alphabet. Each pupil had a different letter telling an Easter fact. We learnt about the different important figures involved in Jesus' resurrection, as well as remembering modern day associations such as lambs and chicks being born, spending time with family and friends and Easter eggs!

Year 3's Class Trip

On Friday 18th March, Year 3 visited Dover Museum and had an interesting and fun time comparing The Stone Age and The Bronze Age. First we went upstairs in the museum and had a look at the artefacts from the Bronze Age, including the Bronze Age boat. We were lucky enough to have an exciting talk from James and then we were left to our own devices to explore lots of different areas. We looked at a roundhouse and the different materials used, and the clothing worn by people during this era. We also had a chance to sketch some parts of the Bronze Age boat and were amazed to learn that there was one third of the boat missing!

Next it was our chance to have a go at making a Bronze Age boat from clay including some of the cargo that would have travelled on the boat to be traded with France. We listened very carefully and then used our skills to build our own boats. We can't wait to paint them next term!

Our final part of the day involved another chance to look at artefacts from the Bronze Age and Stone Age, but this time it was much more hands on as we were able to pass the artefacts around and have a really detailed look at them. We found out about the different materials that were used in the Stone Age and what new materials had been discovered for the Bronze Age. We looked at weapons, cutlery, utensils and clothes. Sue also taught us how to spin wool and told us this was a job for the girls! And keeping the sheep off the roof was a job for the boys!

Year 3 had an amazing day!

Our Amazing Bodies

This week is Science Week and to recognise this, on Monday 14th March, Year 3 had a whole day of science! A special visitor called Megan came in and taught us lots of new things about our body's structure and nutrition. Megan told us that she was a Nutritionist and that it’s her job to help people make the right choices when planning a healthy diet. She works with athletes, children and people from all sorts of back grounds to make sure their diet suits them.

We began by looking at a lot of different foods, what foods we like and dislike and any foods we hadn't heard of as well as the nutrition they provide us with. We looked at the five main food groups and how much of each one we need to make a healthy day. We then designed our own meals and made sure we included everything we need to have a healthy diet.

Our next activity was to look at not only our body, but of different animals as well. We were only allowed to look at the skeletal structure and we had to try and figure out what animals they were! We noticed that animals all have very similar bones, we looked at the ribs, skull, spinal column and limbs and thought carefully about the job of each bone. After learning about the different groups of animals and their skeletons, we moved on to design our own mammal.

After lunch we put our senses to the test! We put a scarf over our eyes, held our nose and tasted two things; one was an apple and one was a potato. Some of us found this very tricky to tell the difference without first being able to see and smell the difference!

Finally we moved into the hall and learned about our muscles. We found out that different movements and stretches put different muscles into action. We can now name many of the muscles in our body.

Our Marble Treat

Year 3 have earned another marble treat! This time, we chose to have a film and popcorn afternoon. We watched The Croods as it was a fun way to learn more about cavemen, our topic this term. We also tried different flavours of popcorn and they were all yum!

Measuring Maths

On Monday 7th March, Year 3 have started to look at measurements and have been measuring different objects using a ruler and a tape measure. Before we measured objects, we estimated how long we thought they might be and compared them to the actual measurement to see how far off we were.

Isobel- "We couldn't always use a ruler because it is straight, so we had to use a tape measure to measure things like our heads and wrists."

Jake- "I liked measuring things that I could find around the classroom. I measured my pencil, the pencil pot, my maths book and my rubber all with my ruler. I could use my ruler because those things were all straight."

Scarlett- "I learnt how to measure my hand span. You had to spread your hand out as much as you can and measure from the tip of your thumb to the tip of your little finger."

Macie- "Some of my estimates were quite close and others were really different."

Cave Painting

In Year 3, we are looking at the Stone Age throughout Term 4 and we have spent a day looking at different paintings in caves. We saw that there were no bright colours because they would have used natural colours from things such as berries, coal and chalk. We also learnt that the paintings would tell stories about hunting and meals around the fire. Sometimes they would also draw around their hands.

Tim- "I really like painting round my hand and getting messy. We were allowed to draw on the walls."

Isobel- "The paintings were in the cave really big. Some of the paintings had to be closed to people because they were getting ruined, but museums have made copies for people to see."

Safer Internet Day

Year 3 really enjoyed Safer Internet Day. We learnt how to be safe on the internet and that we should always tell our parents if we ever feel in danger or if we are unsure about something that we have seen or read on the internet. In the afternoon, we all wrote nice messages on each others stickers on our backs and then we designed our own hearts with safe internet messages. #shareaheart

Robot Writing

All term, we have been looking at robots, like the Iron Man, and we have been describing our own robots, for example, how they would look and what jobs they would do. We have also been studying poetry. We have learnt that some poems have rhyming couplets, but not all of them, and then we looked at the rhythm of a poem. We then tried writing some of our own. We hope you enjoy reading them.

Light Play

This term we have been looking at light in science. We have looked at what items reflect light and we learnt some new vocabulary for different kinds of objects. Transparent meant the material lets light pass through it, translucent means that only some light can pass through it and opaque means that no light can get through. We had a fun lesson today where we looked at light and lots of different reflective materials.

Harvey- "I liked using the torches with the mirrors and seeing where the light would reflect to. I learnt that light travels in straight lines and that's why it was reflecting back at me when I held the mirror in front of me. I liked working with Dylan for this."

Summer- "When I wrote the word on the paper, I held my mirror up and could see the word reflected in it."

Travelling On Our Feet

In PE this week, Year 3 have been looking at different ways to travel around the hall.

Lucian- "I really enjoyed doing this in PE and looking at different ways that I could travel across the room. I liked being on the dots and doing different jumps. Doing the scissor jump was my favourite."

Caitlin- "PE is really fun at the moment. When I was doing my pencil roll on the mats, it made me dizzy because I had to do so many rolls to get to the end."

Brook- "The bunny hops over the benches were my favourite bit."

Shadow Puppets

In year 3 this week, we have been retelling the story of The Iron Man. Each group took a different chapter and have rewritten the story in the form of a script. We have then used the light boxes to tell the story. We used a variety of materials to help us create a background for a scene, such as tissue paper and shiny plastic. We have also written letters to Mrs Fotheringham inviting her to watch the premiere of our Iron Man shadow puppet plays.

Megan- "We used different materials to create the scenery for the chapter our group was doing. Some of the materials were translucent which meant some light could be let through. We learnt about this in our science lesson using torches and different materials."

Map Skills

Year 3 have been learning how to read maps and look at the different symbols and what they mean. We managed to locate different towns and villages, as well as looking for landmarks.

Summer- "I really enjoyed this. I had to look for the coordinates, and you have to look for the one along first and then up the side of the map next."

Lucian- "I liked looking for the different villages. Some were hard to find."

Year 3's Balancing Skills

This week year 3 were practising their balancing in gymnastics and tried to find ways which made it easier to hold their balances.

Isobel- 'I found it easier to balance with a partner because you could use them to steady you. I found it fun finding out what balances were easier to do by yourself and which ones were easier to do with a partner or in a group.'

Christmas Poems

In the build up to Christmas, we have been looking at things that we find important at Christmas. We thought that presents were very important! But we also decided that spending time with our family and those we love was also important at Christmas time. We decided to write different types of poems about what we enjoyed during the Christmas holidays.

Word Washing Line

This term in year 3 we have been looking at prefixes and suffixes. We had fun this week trying to make words and pegging the root word on to our washing line next to the correct suffixes to see if we had made words.

Macie- "I liked looking in the dictionary to find different words."

Mark- "Me and Conner worked together to write our word. It was fun."

Lucian- "I learnt lots of new words in this lesson and I will try and use them in my work."

Human Geography vs Physical Geography!

Democracy was alive at White Cliffs this week, with Year 3 celebrating the democratic process by taking part in their own House of Commons session as part of their English and Geography topics this term. A lively debate happened, with those on the left of the house believing that the human geography (roads, the port, hospitals, etc.) were most important to consider, whilst those on the right argued in favour of the importance of the physical geography (view from cliff tops, close to forest for building supplies, near a river to fish, etc.) Cries of support and disagreement had to be quietened by the Speakers gavel! After much intelligent and well-argued debate, in true democratic spirit a vote was held— in the end we decided that physical geography was most important as we believed that the human geography could be added at a later date!

Buster's Book Club Winners

A HUGE congratulations to our Year 3 class for beating lots of competition in our council district to be the winners of Buster's Book Club . Two members of Year 3 went to Gillingham Ice Rink to pick up their award and be interviewed by a KM radio reporter.

We are really proud of Year 3 and hope to be successful in the future.

Harvey- "We won Buster's Book Club Challenge for our area, I was very excited."

Lilly- "My favourite part was having my picture taken with Buster and watching the figure skaters."

Year 3's Banquet

For our first marble treat, we decided to have a banquet as we had been looking at fairy tales this term. We made and decorated crowns and then our servants prepared and served our feast as we watched The Sword in the Stone!

Mark - "I enjoyed making my crown and sticking jewels to it."

Dylan - "I really enjoyed our banquet and watching the sword in the stone. I liked Mrs Bagshaw being our servant for the treat."

Stay Connected!

It was our Year 3 assembly and our theme was friendship. We made a huge friendship web to show how everyone in our class might not be best friends, but we are all connected in one way or another. We looked at people's favourite games, food and music. At the end of our assembly we all performed a rap to the rest of the school called 'Stay Connected'.

The White Rabbit

In our Year 3 dance class with Miss Cloke, we have been looking at Alice in Wonderland. We have been acting out different fairy tale characters and have been practising sneaking up on the white rabbit for the beginning of our dance.

Lilly - "I enjoyed being the white rabbit and pretending I didn't know people were looking for me."

Tim - "I liked tiptoeing and pretending to be a scary giant."

Busy Bees

As part of our science this term we have investigated insect pollination.

Brooke- "The bee flew over to the flower and drank the nectar. The pollen stuck to the bees legs and we used wotsits on our fingers for this. Then I flew to a different flower and wiped the pollen onto the new flower."

Lexie- "We were pretending to be bees and we were flying around and then we picked up some pollen from a flower because we wanted to drink the nectar. Then we flew to a different flower and left the pollen on this flower. The flowers were colourful and beautiful and that’s why the bees liked them."

Egyptian Art

Harvey- We made canopic jars and I made Anubis, the God of death. We used modelling clay to shape his body and his head. Anubis has a long nose and big ears. Then we made our base, and then we painted them. We used bright colours and I used blue, yellow, orange, red, green and white paint.

Brook- I made Thoth, the God of the underworld. I made him using clay and I had a long bit of clay that I smoothed with my fingers and I put it on his head so it made his beak. Then I painted him, his beak was brown and his skirt was yellow.

Insect Observations

Liam- We had to stay quiet because otherwise the insects would all run away and they wouldn’t appear so we wouldn’t be able to tally them. We saw spiders, flies but we didn’t see the grasshopper but we knew it was near because we could hear it. When we came in, we had to count the totals and then the next day, we drew a bar chart.

Dylan- When we were looking at the plant, we saw loads of different insects. The insects we found were three wasps, two ants, four butterflies and three or four spiders. The ants crawled onto our books and one of the spiders was making a web between two different plants.

Marshmallow Maths

We have been building 3D shapes using modelling materials to help investigate the different properties.

Megan- I made a little cube out of spaghetti and marshmallows. It was hard to make it stand up by itself because it kept breaking and falling down.

Billy- I made a cube with the spaghetti, cubes have 6 sides. You count the marshmallows to find the number of corners, my cube has 8 corners.

Year Three’s Special Tree

As part of our science topic this term we have adopted a class tree! We will be watching to see how our tree changes through the year! Keep an eye out for updates as we make observations and recordings on what it looks like.

We went to look at our tree on 14/09/15 and these are our observations:

Lilly- There are lots of leaves but not all the same, some are bright green, some dark green and some are brown and crispy.

Jake- The trunk is split into lots of small parts, not one big trunk like some trees.

Caitlin-I can see some berries! But only one bunch.

Jonny- There are thousands of small branches.

Basketball skills practice

We loved getting outside this week to practice our basketball skills. We managed to dodge the rain clouds and spent an afternoon learning how to throw a bounce pass and dribble accurately. We found it really tricky to dribble and move at the same time, as well as trying to dodge other children around us! Next time we are hoping to apply these skills in a match.

How is Sand Art Helping our Handwriting?

Every day we practice our handwriting, learning to hold a pencil correctly, sitting at our tables nicely and having our books straight on the table, but this week we have been improving out handwriting with a difference!

We were re-telling the story of Roald Dahl’s Enormous Crocodile using sand art and light boxes. We had to be really careful to move the sand around the light box to create different shapes patterns and textures. We found that you can move your hands in lots of different ways, a pointing fingers gives you a thin sharp line whereas if you sweep your palm across the sand it give you a much thicker line. Some of us tried to sprinkle the sand to give the crocodile’s pond a ripple effect.

Brook- When I use all of my fingers and wiggle it looks like water.

Harvey- I used one finger to make the coconuts in the tree that the crocodile disguised himself as.

Conner- You can make piles like an island.

Newsround Special

This week we were shocked to hear some of the horrible things going on in the world when we watched the Newsround special about the crisis in Syria. We were surprised to hear that children just like us were caught up in the fighting and had no other choice but to leave their homes. We wanted to share some of our views with you.